


After Three Years

by TheDoctorIsIcecube



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Let's Go! Pikachu & Let's Go! Eievui | Pokemon: Let's Go Pikachu! & Let's Go Eevee!
Genre: Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Friendship, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Canon, Selectively Mute Character, Support, mute character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-04 05:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17298257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDoctorIsIcecube/pseuds/TheDoctorIsIcecube
Summary: A year after becoming Champion, and Chase just...vanished. Disappeared, without a single word, abandoning everyone he knew. Trace picked up where he left off, and that was fine. But then, three years later, Chase comes back. And Trace has no idea what comes next.





	1. Inform

Trace was in the middle of his usual battle preparation routine (he'd moved from stretches to giving all his Pokémon a quick snack) when he got a phone call. He didn't often get calls before a challenge, and especially not from...from Chase's mum. Without thinking, he picked up the call. “Hi Willow,” he said. He wasn't expecting the next words.

“When can you be back in Pallet Town next?” She asked. She sounded slightly...breathless? Immediately, Trace worried that something had happened. Surely there was nothing dangerous in Pallet Town. “Chase just got back.”

"He- what?" It took a lot of his focus not to immediately drop his phone out of surprise. It had been three years since Chase had vanished, and now he was back all of a sudden? "I'm coming back right now."

“You don’t have to come if you’re busy,” she said. “He’s headed on to bed, he walked here from Vermilion City. I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you whenever you can spare the time.”

“I’m coming now,” he repeated. He- how could she even suggest that he’d wait? It had been three years. Three years, and not a single word. No challenger was important enough that they couldn’t wait - it wasn’t like he took a day off particularly often.

"Alright, then. I'm warning you, though, he's very tired. You'll be waiting around for a while." Trace wasn't listening. He hung up the phone, rushing to get his Pokemon back into their balls.

He didn’t feel the tiniest bit bad, telling Lance that he wouldn’t be taking any challengers for the rest of that day and maybe not tomorrow either. This was important. This was...the friend he’d only been desperately hoping wasn’t dead. The friend he’d barely even dared to hope he’d see again, after what happened. 

Although, to be honest, he didn't even really know what had happened. Chase had been the champion one day, and the next he'd been gone and no one knew where he'd vanished off to. He was just...gone. And there was never any indication that he would ever come back.

Yet now, here he was. Back at home. He hadn’t called, sent a letter, done anything ever to indicate that he was okay. He hadn’t left any way of contacting him, or told them where he was planning on going. And how he’d returned without even asking for help getting from the port to his home.

Trace packed a bag as quickly as he could, practically yelled his explanation to Lance as he was crossing the room, and set out on the quickest way back to Pallet Town from the Indigo Plateau. His challengers could wait as long as necessary. This was all he cared about for now.

-

He got into Pallet Town just as the midday sun was turning into the afternoon sun, practically racing down the path. He'd barely even come to a stop before he rang the doorbell to the house.

He waited impatiently for it to open, almost jumping out of his skin when it did. It wasn't Chase- it was his mother, which wasn't surprising, but still Trace was a little disappointed.

"Hi Trace," she said. She still looked as shaken as she had sounded on the phone. "Come on in. Chase is upstairs, I'll ask him if he wants to come down for a cup of tea."

"Oh- okay. You don't have to disturb him if he's sleeping, though." Trace hoped he wasn't intruding too much; hopefully he hadn't been too hasty in getting down here.

"Why did you come if you didn't want to see him?" Willow asked with a smile, moving to turn the kettle on before heading up the stairs. "Go ahead and sit down, Trace."

"Yeah. Okay. Thank you." Trace did as he was told, realising as he sat down that he hadn't had a break since he set off. He let out a long sigh, practically melting against the sofa. Wow, he was tired.

He tried not to listen to what was going on in the room above, but he couldn't help it. Either way, all he could hear was quiet talking. He couldn't make any words out from what they were saying, but it didn't sound like Chase was particularly excited to see him. He didn't know why he'd expected anything else, he supposed, it had been so long.

He just closed his eyes, and tried not to listen, and tried to process everything that had been going on. It had been a crazy day already, and it wasn't showing any signs of getting any less weird.

After a few minutes, Chase's mum came back down the stairs. "He said he might come down in a bit," she said with a small sigh. "But if he doesn't, I'd go say hi before you leave."

"I can wait," he said immediately. He just...he wanted to see him. Mostly, he wanted to ask questions, although he knew that Chase probably wouldn't answer very many of them. He never had been much of a talker. "...Did he tell you where he's been?"

"He said everywhere," she said with a short laugh. She poured three cups of tea, which gave Trace a tiny bit of hope that Chase might come down. "He came back here from Johto, though."

"Everywhere? Wow." Trace took his cup of tea, very grateful to be able to get some sort of sustenance inside of him. He hadn't eaten since breakfast, and that was hours ago now.

"I'm not sure if that's literal or metaphorical," she said, "but I'm sure he'll have many tales to tell when he wants to." If only he'd told them about everything when it was still ongoing. If only he'd just contacted them.

"Knowing him, he won't tell us everything for a long time," Trace said, trying not to sound bitter about it. Chase didn't deserve that. "Do you think I could go bring that cup of tea up to him? I want to see him..."

"Give him a minute," she said. "Unless you're in a hurry, I don't think it could hurt to let the cup cool down." Trace nodded, but he couldn't help but let his gaze wander again and again to the stairs. Chase was up there. He was actually there.

It seemed too good to be true, after he'd been just...gone, for so long. Trace wanted to know everything, wanted to know if Chase was okay, wanted- well, an explanation. And maybe an apology. Chase left without saying a word, and it had hurt. To this day, Trace had no idea why he'd left. Or why he'd come back. Maybe he didn't...maybe he didn't want to be back. Maybe he was planning on disappearing again. Anything seemed possible, with what had happened before.

Which was why he had to go and see him as soon as possible, just in case he disappeared again. Trace would never forgive himself if Chase managed to sneak off out of the window or something whilst he was down here drinking tea. He was just about to get up and take the cup upstairs when he heard the door at the top of the stairs open. He jumped up immediately, and then he realised that he didn't know if that was- maybe Chase just wanted it to be low key, but- he ran towards the stairs.

Chase was standing there in the same hat he'd been wearing for years, with his Eevee perched atop his head like she'd never moved. He looked almost the same, except taller, skinnier, and considerably tireder. Trace grinned- he couldn't help himself, even though part of him wanted to demand explanations.

"Can I-" he opened his arms out slightly, and Chase looked at him like...something. Trace wasn't sure what. But then he nodded, and Trace didn't hesitate for a second, even if they were both standing on the stairs.

He wrapped his best friend in a tight hug, doing his best not to knock them both over with the force of it. "I missed you," he mumbled, his face half-buried in Chase's shoulder. "What have you been up to? I took over your champion duties, you know." He couldn't help himself- he just wanted to talk, share everything that had happened over the last three years.

"Okay," Chase said, and then he backed away, and damn it he'd said the wrong thing, hadn't he. But he didn't know what that thing was. Chase smiled at him, but it looked forced. "I'm just..." he trailed off and went back upstairs, turning left to go to the bathroom. Trace sighed, watching him go and trying not to look too defeated. Clearly he wasn’t going to get a conversation today. But a hug was a good start.


	2. Talking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trace and Chase finally have a conversation of sorts.

After a while of waiting for Chase to maybe come back down, Trace gave up and went home. It...hurt, honestly. He'd tried. And it felt more like Chase had brushed him off than anything else. Willow had told him that he was probably just tired and didn't want to talk yet, but it didn't really change how he felt.

He hadn’t been home in a while. Being the reigning champion was a tough job, and it didn't leave much time for visiting his family. Right now, though, he wasn’t in much of a mood to talk to them. He went up to his room and sat on his bed, staring out towards the window. He was directly opposite Chase’s room- when they’d been younger, they’d had conversations through their windows sometimes. This time, Chase's curtains were drawn.

Trace sort of understood why Chase didn't want to talk to him. Chase had always been quiet, and reserved about his feelings. But they were friends, and they'd always shared everything with each other. Trace felt like he must have...done something wrong. Or Chase would never have cut him off like he did.

He crossed to his desk, grabbing a paper and pen and writing ‘come over and talk with me?’ on it. He propped it up in his window, so that Chase wouldn’t be able to miss it if he opened his curtains. Maybe it was a silly thing to do, but maybe it was just silly enough to work. 

Leaving it there, he flopped onto his bed with a sigh. His mind immediately drifted to what would come next. He'd taken Chase's job, technically, and now Chase was back. It didn't look like he'd be reclaiming it any time soon, if the reception he'd got was any indication, but he'd have to address the issue anyway. People would find out about his return soon enough. Hopefully not too soon, though. Ideally, Trace wanted a chance to talk about all of this with Chase before announcing anything to the public. Being the champion came with a lot of fame, which was fun at times, but definitely not always.

After half an hour of sitting on his phone trying to draft emails to the fifty thousand people who seemed to email him on a daily basis, he sighed, gave up, and put it down. He couldn’t focus when he knew that Chase was right there across the road for the first time in years. And then his phone buzzed, which it never did, because it was only set to buzz if...if he got a text from Chase. He scrambled to pick it up, and opened the message as quickly as he could. It was short, but Trace didn't care- today, he would have taken even one word.

‘Sorry about earlier,’ the message read. Trace stared at it for a few moments. ‘I’m really tired.’

‘Your mum said you’d be,’ he replied. He wanted to reply with a smiley face but maybe that was a bit too cheerful after being brushed off after three years of silence. He started typing out a questioning message, and then he realised that maybe interrogating him wasn’t the best idea. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘Thanks,’ came the reply almost immediately. Trace didn't have to wait long for another message to pop up. ‘Sorry about disappearing. I promise I’ll tell you everything when I’m feeling better. I really missed you.’

Trace bit his lip, trying not to cry. He was done with crying over this - he didn’t need to be sad now Chase was back. ‘I missed you too. You would have missed me less if you’d texted me once or twice :P’

‘Sorry,’ Chase said again, and Trace felt a little bit bad for his joke. ‘I said I’d explain everything, and I will. Promise.’ Clearly, that was the best he was going to get today. Which was a lot better than nothing for three years, to be fair. 

‘I could talk about stuff now instead,’ Trace suggested. ‘Unless you want to sleep of course. Which is totally fine if you do.’ That sounded a bit snappy, so he sent another message. ‘You’ve travelled a long way I just thought if you wanted to stay awake then it might be a good idea.’

‘You can tell me about how you’ve been,’ came the reply.

‘I’ve been up to a lot,’ he sent, which gave him a minute to think about everything he’d done. ‘Being champion is really cool, they even asked me to go on TV last year. And I did some travelling, too. Not as much as you, though.’

‘Where have you been?’ Trace could almost hear the excitement in Chase’s tone.

‘Well, mostly just to Johto,’ he replied. ‘I went to a few cities there, because the League is their league too and I wanted to meet the gym leaders. And I went to Alola for a week as well, for a holiday.’

‘I went to Alola too. It was nice, but their Exeggutor freak me out.’ Trace laughed at that. He’d missed comments like that. Maybe even more than he’d realised. 

‘They are kinda tall… They have very cute Vulpix over there, though.’ 

‘They have some very strange Pokémon,’ Chase agreed. ‘But there are strange Pokémon all over. Except Magikarp, which is basically universal.’

‘Why, of all Pokémon? D:’

‘Rip Magikarp, ever unloved,’ Chase replied. ‘They’re resilient, I guess.’

‘They evolve to be very cool,’ Trace pointed out. ‘You just have to put up with a lot of silly floppy fish before then.’

‘I never knew Magikarp were so relatable :D’ Trace couldn’t help but snort at that. He’d missed Chase so much. Missed talking to him, missed, well, everything about him.

‘You’re not silly or floppy.’

‘I feel pretty floppy rn…..’

‘Is this your way of telling me that you need to get some sleep?’

‘Uh, maybe?’

‘Get some sleep, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Oh and again, I missed you :)’ There was no reply to that message, but Chase had read it. Trace could imagine that he might have even fallen asleep with his phone still in his hands.

Trace smiled to himself before putting his phone down. He felt a lot better now. Chase wasn’t going to ignore him forever, and things were going to be okay. The emails, though...well, he still had no idea how to answer all those.


	3. Advice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trace talks to someone else to get an idea of what to do next.

"Can I ask you for advice about something?" A week had gone by, and Trace had long since returned to the Pokémon League. Chase had asked him to keep his return a secret for now, and he was happy to oblige. One extra thing he could deal with later. That said...he still needed to deal with the issue of Chase himself. And rebuilding their relationship. Which was why he'd called Blue.

"Sure, kid. Whatever you need." Blue elbowed him in what was probably a friendly way, then perched himself nearby. "Shoot." 

"Okay...you can't tell anyone about this. I mean it. But...Chase is back in Kanto."

"Huh," Blue said, clearly digesting it for a moment. "That took him a while. Is he doing okay?" He'd managed to hit the nail on the head immediately. Trace didn't know how he just...did that. All the time.

"Uh, not really." Trace sighed. "He's even quieter than usual. I got a hug out of him and then he ran off and I've only been talking to him over text since then. And he looks...I dunno, tired. I don't think he was taking very good care of himself."

Blue let out a short bark of a laugh. Trace gave him a Look. "Sorry, I guess it's not very funny. You're right. It just reminds me of when Red did pretty much the same thing a few years before you kids ever showed up."

"He did?" Trace blinked. The similarities between those two were eerie sometimes. Near-silent, incredibly good with Pokemon, both involved in dealing with Team Rocket whenever they popped up. "What happened with Red? How long did it take him to go back to normal after he got back?"

"Well, you know how he is," Blue said, a definite note of fondness in his voice (Trace was reminded of the holiday in Alola - there were two rooms booked for the three of them). "Never and immediately, I guess. After he'd slept for ages, he was back exactly how he was before, but it wasn't like the disappearing up a mountain never happened."

"Up a mountain? Okay, that is weird. Chase just went travelling. What was he doing up a mountain?" 

"I still don't really know," Blue admitted. "Something about meditation and challenging a few kids to Pokemon battles."

"Red's really strange," he decided. He'd already decided that a couple of years ago, but now it was extra decided. "But was he...did it turn out okay? Did you get to being friends like you used to be or did you have to build it up from the start?"

"It took a month or two to get back to where we used to be," Blue admitted. "But we were back to being friends eventually, and then we started- er, actually, you're probably too young to hear about that. Never mind. Look- the point is, you'll be fine. Don't worry about it, kid. Chase is strange but he's not going to forget about you in a hurry."

Too young to hear about what came after friendship but not too young to hear about it through the hotel wall, apparently. Then again, Blue probably didn't know about that. "But what if he doesn't turn out okay?"

"Then that's his problem, not yours. But he will, alright? I can almost guarantee it." Blue stood up again, reaching out to pat him on the shoulder. "Let me know when he's ready to talk to people. I miss that kid."

"I guess," Trace said. He didn't feel like Chase was going to be okay. And he sort of felt like, if he wasn't, it was his problem. Because Chase was his friend, and he was one of Chase's only friends. If he just left him to himself it wouldn't be fair.

"Oh, stop beating yourself up. I can see it in your face. He didn't leave because of you, and as long as you keep talking to him, he'll be fine. Hey- I can ask Red to talk to him, if you want. Maybe they can bond over... I don't know, whatever they do when they're sitting in silence on their own."

"I-if you want to," he said. He didn't quite know how enlisting Red would help. "But people aren't meant to know he's back or anything. And I don't know if...I mean, I don't think they ever really spoke to one another before."

"This is Red we're talking about, of course they didn't speak. But I'm pretty sure they kept in contact with one another after that time they battled." That was news to Trace, but he supposed it wasn't all that surprising.

"Maybe it would help, I don't know," he said. He kicked his heels against the wall in frustration. He didn't know how to deal with this. He didn't know what to do, or how to make it so Chase was okay again as soon as possible.

"Hey, calm down. Getting mad about it isn't going to help." Blue rested a hand on his arm again. "Chase will be fine. Why wouldn't he be, when he has a friend like you to care about him?"

Trace let out a shaky sigh. "I was there before and he just...left. He didn't even say a word to me! He might just do the same thing again if I do something wrong."

"I don't think so. Red's never left again. And it sounds to me like Chase didn't have the best time out there on his own, so I doubt he'd go off again. You just need to be there for him, kid, make sure he feels welcome back here."

Trace nodded, but he still couldn't help but feel uneasy. He knew there was no point to feeling this way, but he couldn't change it. He was just...worried. "You have to trust him. He won't run off and leave you again, especially not if he knows how much you care." Blue stepped away from him again, heading for the door. "I should be going. Don't you have a challenger to beat up now?"

"Probably," he said, glancing at the clock. He did. "Oops. Yeah, I should be getting to that now. Thanks for coming and all, I hope it didn't keep you away from the gym too long."

"Naw, it's fine. Always happy to help a friend." Blue grinned, and jogged on out of the door, leaving Trace on his own again.

Trace sighed, and got his phone out to shoot a quick text to Chase. 'Fancy meeting up at some point?' he asked. 'Just to chill in your house or something?'

There was no response for a minute. Trace was just about to shove his phone back in his pocket and head out to meet his challenger when the phone buzzed. 'Can you do tomorrow afternoon?'

There was a challenger scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, but they'd never challenged the League before, so the likelihood was that he would be able to do it. Anyway, Chase was more important. 'Sure!'

‘See you then :)’ Trace smiled at the last text, picturing Chase smiling back in his room at home. An actual face-to-face conversation was certainly a good step in the right direction, and he was thankful for it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading :) if you enjoyed, please leave a comment! It really helps with developing this further.


End file.
